I read the wiki article[0] about this after reading the article and found it a lot more informative. It says just before touchdown "Fitch noticed the high sink

I read the wiki article[0] about this after reading the article and found it a lot more informative. It says just before touchdown "Fitch noticed the high sink rate and that the plane started to yaw right again, and pushed the throttles to full power in an attempt to mitigate the high sink rate and level the plane". It seems a more complex situation than him just deciding to apply power to the engines as the right wing would likely have made contact with the ground anyway. I wasn't able to find any speculation if Fitch could have acted differently and had a better outcome in the official report[1]. The report states that the "captain's acceptance of the check airman to assist in the cockpit was positive and appropriate". Regarding disobeying the captain we can see from transcripts from the CVR that the captain (probably) knew what Fitch was doing: Records: "Close 'em off." Haynes: "Left turn." Records: "Pull 'em off" Fitch: "Nah, I can't pull 'em off or we'll lose it, that's what's turning ya." Unidentified: "Okay." Fitch: "Back ya’ll!" Haynes: "Left, Left throttle, left, left, left, left, left, left, left, left, left, left, left!" Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS): "Whoop whoop pull up. Whoop whoop pull up. Whoop whoop pull up." Haynes: "Everybody stay in brace!" GPWS: "Whoop whoop pull up." Haynes: "God!" [Sound of impact, end of recording] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 [1] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR-90-06.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... (Discussion of the performance of the flight crew from page 75 [81] onwards)